Chomp on this in
your mind, while you are feeding your
"BERN!"
Wait!
Before you, strike
that match, check out these facts?
Why did Bernie
cosponsor a bill and vote to dump Vermont’s nuclear waste
in a poor Latino
community?
Will he build a wall
or pollute the border?
Representatives
Bernie Sanders sponsored a bill to ship his state's nuclear waste
to Texas in
1998.
The Governor of
Texas in 1998 was George W. Bush a Republican.
The Republicans
controlled the U.S. House in 1998
The Republicans
controlled the U.S. Senate in 1998
What kind of deals
will he be planning if he wins the Whitehouse?
We already know what
he thinks about women
while in backroom meeting with men.
Why did Bernie
cosponsor a bill and vote to dump Vermont’s nuclear waste
in a poor Latino
community?
In 1998, the House
of Representatives approved a compact struck between Texas, Vermont and Maine
that would allow Vermont and Maine to dump low-level nuclear waste at a
designated site in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Sanders, at the time representing
Vermont in the House, cosponsored the bill and actively ushered it through
Congress.
Located about 16
miles from the Mexican border, Sierra Blanca’s population is predominantly of
Mexican ancestry. At the time, the community was about two-thirds Latino, and
its residents had an average income of $8,000, according to the an article in
the Bangor Daily News.
Maine-Vermont
nuclear waste compact approved by House
By Paul Kane States
News Service, Special to the BDN
This story was
published on July 30, 1998 in all editions of the Bangor Daily News
WASHINGTON — The
House approved Wednesday a deal that would allow Maine and Vermont to dump
their low-level nuclear waste from places like the now-closed Maine Yankee in a
poor Hispanic town in west Texas.
In a 305-117 vote,
the House approved the compact without any of the troublesome amendments that
had been previously attached to the tri-state deal, setting up a final showdown
in the Senate that will determine its fate.
“All we are asking
is to allow us to get [the compact] through and dispose of our waste in a way
that makes sense,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, during two-and-a-half
hours of debate.
If approved by both
the House and Senate, the compact would call for Maine and Vermont to pay $25
million each so Texas can build the waste dump, which has been sited in Sierra
Blanca, Texas. Once built, it would house low-level waste from private nuclear
power companies from the three states.
The waste would
include items such as scrap metal and worker’s gloves from the defunct Maine
Yankee in Wiscasset, as well as medical gloves used in radiation treatments at
hospitals.
As part of a
national plan drafted in the 1980s, the federal government accepted
responsibility for high-level nuclear waste from private reactors, which is
tentatively planned for burial in Nevada. But Congress encouraged states to
build small coalitions, referred to as compacts, to handle low-level waste.
To date, nine
compacts have been approved that cover 41 states. Opponents of the
Maine-Vermont-Texas compact contend that Sierra Blanca was chosen as the site
because it lacks political clout, considering it is 67 percent Mexican-American
and its residents have an average income of $8,000.
“In this area, we
don’t want it. We don’t need it. And we shouldn’t have it,” said Rep. Silvestre
Reyes, D-Texas. Reyes and other opponents say it is not environmentally safe.
But Rep. John
Baldacci, D-Maine, said any environmental risks to the region would be taken
care of during the construction process, which would include an environmental
impact statement and other oversight.
“Those concerns will
be addressed in the process,” Baldacci said. “The public will be involved.”
A majority of both
Democrats and Republicans supported the compact, as they did last fall when the
bill first passed the House. At that time, however, the House approved an
amendment by opponents that would have prohibited the compact from taking in
any nuclear waste from states not signing on to the original compact.
Also, when the
Senate first approved the deal in the spring, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.,
attached a measure that allowed Sierra Blanca residents to file federal
discrimination suits if they opposed the compact.
Those amendments
were opposed by Maine Yankee, which wants the right to sell off any unused
space in the dump site, and Gov. Angus King and other state lawmakers, who said
they would consider lawsuits a prohibitive delay to the project ever being
finished.
If it were passed
with amendments, the compact would also have to go back for approval to the
three states, each of which has approved the deal. Voters in Maine gave
approval by a three-to-one margin in a 1993 referendum.
When the House and
Senate hammered out a single bill, supporters of the compact won out, and the
amendments were simply tossed aside. Because of that, Wellstone has promised to
force a fearsome debate on the issue and the overarching issue of what he calls
“environmental racism.”
“I will use every
parliamentary tool available to try and block this shameful bill,” Wellstone
said.
A vote could come in
the Senate on Friday, according to Dave Lackey, spokesman to Sen. Olympia
Snowe, R-Maine. But the Senate wants to break for its month long August recess
on Friday, and finding time on the schedule for a contentious bill could be
difficult and may push a vote on the compact back until September.
“It’s simply a
matter of timing,” Lackey said.